The Ndebele had first contact with Christian
missionaries when Mzilikazi consented to the London
Missionary Society�s coming to Zimbabwe. Mzilikazi
consented to the coming of the missionaries led by
Robert Moffat in 1867 strictly for non religious
purposes. King Mzilikazihad hoped to use the
missionaries as agents for trade with white traders from
South
Africa.

The first group of missionaries entered the country
in September 1859 led by Robert Moffat, and the Ndebele�s
reception of the troop was influenced by secular and
religious factors.

As soon as they entered the Ndebele territory, the missionaries were
treated circumspectly. The missionaries had reported to
the King Mzilikazi that their draught oxen had lung sickness and
King Mzilikazi had ordered the settlers to be quarantined so that
the disease would not spread to the rest of the nation.
The King also arranged for the medical treatment of the
missionaries by a witch doctor, an Inyanga.

One of the missionaries, William Sykes had lost his wife
before entering Zimbabwe and the Ndebele believed that he
was carrying a bad omen and therefore he needed to be
cleansed together with the rest of the crew.

While in quarantine, the missionaries committed a grave
act which the Ndebele interpreted as witchcraft. One of
the missionaries, Goliath, caused alarm when he grabbed
an Ndebele boy by his hair, an act associated with
bewitching the boy. The missionaries were put on trial
but only through Moffat�s pleas of mercy to his friend King Mzilikazi were the missionaries allowed to get away with a fine.

It is thus clear from these
early events that King Mzilikazi wanted to make it clear to the
missionaries that if they wanted to live peaceable
within the Ndebele Kingdom, it was on condition that
they respected local traditions and religion.

Between 1860 and 1862, the London Missionary Society,
totally failed to penetrate the Ndebele kingdom. During
the years up to Mzilikazi�s death, the missionaries only
managed to maintain links with people to whom they tried
to impart their propaganda but they had little success.

Relations between the
Ndebele and the missionaries were nothing but good. The
coming of the missionaries had brought sickness to the
nation, a lung sickness that saw the decimation of the
Ndebele cattle, as over 10 000 cattle had died of the
sickness by 1962.such misfortune was interpreted by the
Ndebele as a sign of bad omen associated with the
whites, but the anti missionary feeling reached its
climax when the Ndebele put pressure on King Mzilikazi to
disallow the coming of yet another missionary crew in
1862. King Mzilikazi told Moffat that if any missionary dare
to come into the kingdom, he would be killed.